One of the best parts of my life as an executive crisis coach and talk show host is how I get to chat with and interview amazing people regularly. When EOS implementer for family businesses Sara Stern mentioned the term clarity break in a recent Studio/E Zoom meeting, I took note and wanted to know more. I scheduled an interview with her to get to the bottom of this phenomenon that she credits with smoothing out how she thinks as a business owner and even gave her the pathway to a second business.
Stern teaches family-owned businesses how to be more efficient and successful. Her list of 5 things for leaders to focus on is a helpful start:
1. Give clear direction
2. Provide the necessary tools
3. Delegate
4. Act with the greater good in mind
5. Take clarity breaks
While we could write an entire book on each of these things, I’ll focus this blog on Stern’s #5, the Clarity Break. What does it look like? Sitting with a piece of paper for a little peace of mind. That’s right, sit down in a quiet space that isn’t where you usually work during a given work day. Take pen or pencil in hand. Write. Sometimes these clarity breaks will lead to a brainstorm list. Other times, they’ll help you clear your head. Stern has been faithful to them for more than four years. In her first year of clarity breaks, she doubled the size of her original business. Time spent on these varied from year to year. Now, Stern takes about twenty minutes at the beginning of each day.
This year, the effort paid off as she developed her new business—The Sage Pages—practical online courses for family business owners to move from complex issues to thriving for generations. Connect with her here: familybusinessmn.com. Stern will continue to take her clarity breaks to stay sharp with her original EOS implementation business as well as her new biz. Take a page out of her playbook and insert these clarity breaks into your world. The calmer you are on the inside, the more powerful you are on the outside. These clarity breaks provide a respite to focus your thoughts and calm your inner narrative in ways that will lead to bigger WOW!s.
Have a question for the Coach to answer? E-mail roshini@roshinigroup.com. Roshini will share insight from her experience and from leading experts in future Coach’s Corner blogs. For more coaching content, see: Coach
